Self-Consistent Steady-State Simulation of Microwave Photonic Systems Using Harmonic Balance

This paper presents a technique to perform steady-state simulation of optical-electrical systems using the harmonic balance (HB). One of the unique features of this method is that it includes the phase of the optical signal in finding the steady-state solution of the system. The inclusion of phase in a framework using HB poses several challenges since all system variables in HB are assumed to be periodic, whereas the phase of optical signals is, in general, nonperiodic, owing to the nonzero chirp present in laser diodes that are used as drivers for the optical systems. Several examples are presented that demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, and, where possible, the results are compared with theory and existing techniques.